Whoops! Over the Falls.

So it goes.

The heartbreak continues, unabated.

A 2-year-old boy in Texas was pronounced dead Wednesday after he shot himself in a home that Child Protective Services had deemed unfit for children just last year, KLTV reported.  

Trenton Mathis shot himself in the face with a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun Wednesday afternoon in his great-grandparents' home in Cherokee County, Texas. Police said both great-grandparents were at the home when the shooting took place.

I blame out-sized fealty to the Second Amendment.

5%

Portion of wingnuts who actually know where BENGHAZI!! is located.

Yet Another Racist Trope.

Currently making the rounds on the Book of Face.  It's worth pointing out that in almost every instance of automatic telephone customer service, you do not have to "press one for English," the recorded voice routinely offers a greeting -- in English -- and then says something along the line of  "Para español, presione dos."  So this whole "Press one for English" thing is a bunch of malarkey.

Is That Supposed to be Funny "Ha-Ha?"

[Not much of a secret anymore.]

Like him or not, I'm not so sure this is the funniest joke in the world to make about a man who was once held as a prisoner of war for five years.

"Coon Chicken Inn"

[Once popular restaurant chain.]

Got to wondering the other day just why the "fired chicken" thing ever came to be such an offensive racial pejorative.  Turns out, as you might imagine, it's none too pretty:

Since the American Civil War, traditional slave foods like fried chicken, watermelon, and chitterlings have suffered a strong association with African American stereotypes and blackface minstrelsy.^[10] This was commercialized for the first half of the 20th century by restaurants like Sambo's and Coon Chicken Inn, which selected exaggerated depictions of blacks as mascots, implying quality by their association with the stereotype. Although also being acknowledged positively as "soul food" today, the affinity that African American culture has for fried chicken has been considered a delicate, often pejorative issue. While the perception of fried chicken as an ethnic dish has been fading for several decades, with the ubiquity of fried chicken dishes in the US, it persists as a racial stereotype.

"Everything [good] about teaching is extinct..."

The Dennis Rodman of the Middle East

John McCain.

Priorities

Saw a piece on the nightly news detailing the funding shortage depleting our national parks of badly needed monies for staffing and repair and maintenance. According to the report, the Park Service needs an estimated $11-billion to restore and care for our natural treasures . 

The Pentagon alone spends that much in a week, though the entire military-industrial complex spends much, much more.

Why I Don't Tweet

Because twits.

Steal Buy This Book

My cousin wrote a book.  You should buy it. He grew up in northeast Philly, in an Irish-Catholic family with six seven kids. You just know there's gotta be some funny stuff in there.  The part about the sheep must come after he gets to Hollywood, 'cause Lord knows there are no sheep in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

Targeted Online Advertising

I think I found a flaw in the targeted online marketing computer model. The other day I bought a new money-clip-style wallet. It's great. I really like it slim design, plus they shipped it to me so quickly that I literally had it in my back pocket less than 48 hours after I ordered it. But....now all the ads on my web browser are for MONEY-CLIPS and WALLETS. Hey Zappos, I just bought one of those, why would I need another?

UPDATE:  Yesterday I bought a new wireless mouse.  The one I have just doesn't work all that well.  I expect I'll get my new one either today or Monday.  So look what they're trying to sell me online now:

[Thanks, but I've already got one on the way.]

Phone's Off

Weiner is In

Let's just hope he doesn't choose Holder as a running mate.

[Say it out loud now.]

Self-Loathing Black Man

Is it possible we've stumbled upon an African-American Republican with more ambivalence ignorance about his own heritage than even Allen West or Herman Cain?

The Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in Virginia has praised the Constitution’s original clause to count blacks as three-fifths of a person as an “anti-slavery amendment.” 

In an April 28, 2011 statement while he was a Senate candidate, conservative minister and lawyer E.W. Jackson held up the three-fifths clause as an “anti-slavery amendment.” The context of his statement was to attack President Obama after a pastor at a church service he attended referred to the three-fifths clause as a historical marker of racism.

Fugitive from Journalism

[So funny I forgot to laugh.]

I get the snark, really I do.  These fools on the Right really believe President Obama is so disengaged he didn't know shit about Benghazi until hours after the tragedy, and they feel free to take that delusion, throw it in the spin cycle, and make a joke out of it at the expense of the thousands displaced and disheartened by yesterday's massive tornado in Oklahoma.  

The problem here is that this Erick son of Erick asshole collects a regular paycheck as a talking head for CNN, the cable news channel that once considered itself among the best in television journalism. You can't expect to be taken seriously when you give a platform to someone who can make a comment as callously mean-spirited as the one above, even if he did it on his own time.  

Hey CNN, Erick son of Erick lists you as a reference on his resume!

Moochers

It's stories like these that make me think what we really need to do is cut food stamps and unemployment benefits. Better to teach force a man to fish than to give him a fish.

Can't Satirize These Boobs.

I was going to write a snarky post about how senators from Northeastern states ought to make Oklahoma sweat some federal disaster relief (given how the Red State teabaggers in Congress treated the Yanks after Hurricane Sandy), but it looks like Oklahoma's very own know-nothing senator, Tom "Global Warming is a Hoax" Coburn, is going to carry that water for me.

Headline of the Day

Umbrellagate

As my dear old great-grandfather Pop O'Donnell used to say:

"Any damn fool can carry an umbrella in the rain."

Apparently, any damn fool can try to make an issue out of the President's desire to stay dry during a downpour as well.

These people are buffoons!

Nostalgic

...for Travelgate.

They're Out There

How'd you like to be one of the actual people in the world named Ben Ghazi?  Probably kinda tough to work your way up the Google search ranking ladder these days.  And just try getting through airport security.

La fixation des prix ....

You might think this minor story would warrant some discussion on "This Week in Face the Nation Meet the Press," but no, because apparently THE WHITE HOUSE CHANGED THE TALKING POINTS ABOUT BENGHAZI!!!!!

Post-Ironic America

Whomever it was that hypothesized "irony is dead" in 21st-century America never considered the possibility that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld would be given mainstream media platforms to criticize the foreign policy and homeland security decisions of the Obama administration.

#thesundaymorningtalkshowsarehackjournalismandpropagandisticgarbage

Hogan's Heroes was...

...a situation comedy set in a Nazi prisoner of war camp.

Dose of Perspective

What you really need to know about the IRS "scandal," in which the feds "targeted" Tea Party groups for scrutiny of their tax-exempt non-profit status, is that in the middle all of the hullabaloo, only one group saw its exemption revoked....and it was a bunch of liberals in Texas called Emerge America. Not one Tea Party group -- not one -- had its non-profit status taken away.

Here's guessing you won't be hearing about this fact anywhere but MSNBC.

Fall Guy

[Too soft on the wrong people; too hard on the rest]

Perhaps deservedly so.  The smart money says Attorney General Eric Holder is going to take the fall for all this crap.

Personally I think he should get the boot for letting all the war criminals in the previous administration off the hook.

Know Thine Enemy

I think one of President Obama's biggest flaws is that he routinely forgets that his political opponents on the other side of the aisle are nothing more than a witches' brew of batshit-crazy-motherfuckers and shamelessly-opportunistic-douchebags. They're all dumb as a bag of hammers, but just enough smarter than their constituents that their crazy antics could unsettle the political landscape for the rest of Obama's term. 

If the President thinks the Republican freaks dragged Bill Clinton down on a molehill of minor misdeeds, he's forgetting we've had 15 more years of teabagger distillation that allows them to poison even the tiniest well with the thinnest gruel.  These are not your daddy's Republicans anymore, and they've tossed aside any pretense of moderation.  

Whether it's negotiating against himself on Republican terms (see: Affordable Care Act, Bush tax cuts, debt ceiling imbroglio, Social Security benefit cuts) or bashing his head against the hard stone heads wall of congressional obstructionism (see: gun safety background checks, natural disaster aid funding or judicial and cabinet appointments), this president seems not to understand REPUBLICANS ARE NOT INTERESTED IN SEEING HIM ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING.

If he thinks he's going to sail through this Benghazi/IRS-TeaParty/Associated Press kerfuffle somehow unscathed, he is sorely mistaken. Those nuts in the House and Senate are presently stirring up a hornets' nest that may not swirl and sting straight through to 2016.

Good Guy with Gun

...not so good with gun.

[And this happened in Aurora, CO, site of the movie theater shooting.]

The Hissy-Fit: A Conservative Specialty

They've got their panties in a serious bunch this week following revelations that the IRS may have targeted conservative groups with the words "Tea Party" or "patriots" in their name [read: the teabaggers].

And such a thing has nevvvvvvverrrrr happened to any liberal groups.

Turns out never is a long time.

"...a liberal Episcopal church in Pasadena said some critical anti-war things about [George W. Bush] before the 2004 election[...] that resulted in the church being targeted by the IRS in a two-year long probe that eventually resulted in the church being cleared but the IRS saying the church was guilty anyway. 

Somehow, this failed to rise to the level of anyone giving a damn about impeachment at the time, nor did it raise the question by the administrations supporters about the tax-exempt status of organizations of all political stripes engaging in political business.  Somehow we’re supposed to ignore this, and the whole US Attorney scandal where political enemies of the Bush administration really were being targeted by the executive branch. 

Instead we’re supposed to believe that the Tea Party groups were being unfairly singled out as political groups dedicated to the end of the Democrats.  Sure."

Additional info on why the teabaggers came under scrutiny here.

Shorter Benghazi

If you need a little help in understanding what the big deal is about Benghazi, perhaps this little thought experiment will help. Suppose you are involved in an automobile accident, and when the insurance adjuster calls to ask a few questions about the incident, you describe the event as a car "crash."  When you are later quizzed again about the same mishap, you call it a car "collision."  This use of a different label for the accident leads the insurance company to cancel your policy and accuse you of fraud.

The Obama administration initially said the Benghazi incident exploded from a "spontaneous protest" into deadly violence. They later called it "terrorism."  The change in verbiage has apparently grown to become "the worst scandal in US history."

No, I don't get it either.

UPDATE:  Turns out it's even more absurd than the example I cited above.  Noted car-thief and Republican Rep. Darrell Issa says the real problem for the President is that he called the Benghazi attack an "act of terror," rather than "terrorism."  Really.

This Debate Needs an Entrance Exam

It's my belief that anybody who wants to join the BENGHAZI!!! debate should at least be able to locate the place on a map.  

A recent survey found that fully 39% of people who believe BENGHAZI!!!! is the "biggest political scandal in US history" were unable to do so.

My Lucky Day!

[Click image for larger view.]

Had to Happen Eventually

Hold onto your hats ladies and gentlemen, it looks like conservatives have finally convinced the liberal media there's a cancer in the White House.

Initial impeachment proceedings begin this week.

Happy Mother's Day

We've wondered repeatedly on this page in what way the next crazed shooting incident in America will trump the last. ["I'll see your elementary school massacre and raise it with a pre-K slaughter..."]

I think we have this week's winner:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Gunmen opened fire on dozens of people marching in a neighborhood Mother’s Day parade in New Orleans on Sunday, wounding at least 19 people, police said.

Fiddling While Romes Burns

Proving once again that the only real requirement to joining the Republican Party is that one act at all times like a raging asshole, GOP senators who boycotted a committee vote on President Obama's nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency didn't just go golfing or otherwise waste their time not doing their jobs.  No, they arranged instead to have lunch with lobbyists from the energy industry at the same time the vote was taking place.  #toocleverbyhalf.

Bears Repeating

Said before but bears repeating, no one wants to take your guns away, unless of course, you keep refusing to even discuss the issue of gun safety in any terms other than ZOMFG WE NEEDS MOAR GUNZ!!!!!, in which case well, yes, indeed, we'll do our damnedest to take them all.

Memo to Paul Ryan

It's not condescending if ones political others are worthy of ridicule and derision.

UPDATE with example.

After a bill to pass same-sex marriage in Minnesota cleared an important hurdle on Thursday, a Republican lawmaker wept and said her "heart breaks" for the state. 

Get over your sanctimonious self already.

Quote of the Day: Amanda Marcotte

In a post examining all the gory details of the latest conservative meltdown, in which the Heritage Foundation commissioned a study on immigration policy and paid a guy racist douchebag who thinks Hispanics are hardwired for lower IQs to compile the report, Amanda Marcotte boils it down quite succinctly:

A chance to be disingenuous, preening fuckwits while also justifying the persistence of poverty? That shit attracts conservative blowhards like it was a half-off sale on relaxed fit pleated khakis.

Shit Happens.

I'm stuck in the vestibule with Jill Goodacre.

Tweet of the Day

Rush Limbaugh to Start New Rumor

Charles Ramsey used Obamaphone to call 9-1-1.

Wonderful News!

New argument from pro-gun advocates:

"Only slightly more than 30,000 people die from guns in America anymore. It used to be way worse!"

#shrugmovealongnothingtoseehere

Not Even Close

Lucky for Mark Sanford, there are some nice hiking trails very near Washington...and Dulles Int'l. has direct flights to Argentina.

Extinction is Forever.

[So it goes.]

Fare thee well, clouded leopard.

It's a Blessing from God [Not Really]

You see, this is where I part ways with those who attribute every fortuitous event to the Invisible Old Man in the Sky. If it's "a blessing from God" that three women are found alive after suffering a decade of abuse in captivity, was it God's curse when they were originally taken from their families and their friends? To whom do we attribute the 10 years of their lives that were lost? 

I'm happy these young ladies have been found, but "a blessing from God?" 

No, it's not.

Thank You, Mr. Insurance Commissioner

Here in California, the state insurance commissioner, a seat currently occupied by Democrat Dave Jones, has the power to require health insurance companies to lower premiums if he finds they aren't putting enough of their revenues back into providing actual health care benefits for their customers. To that end, I received notification yesterday that my premiums are going down 4.9% starting June 1st. That hardly offsets the 30% increases I've been hit with over the past couple of years, but it's a start.

No More Pink Ribbons

After all the shit hit the fan at the Komen Foundation last year -- has ever a once-revered charity destroyed its good name in more spectacular fashion? -- I went right over to Planned Parenthood and signed up for their monthly giving program.

This latest news only confirms it was the right thing to do.

You should probably do the same, here.

"Give [Me] Credit," This is a Good Post Title

[Give him credit, he knows the game of basketball.]

Hubie Brown says "give him credit" more often than a profligate loan agent at the height of the housing bubble. He passes out more "credit" than an avaricious VISA rep on the first day of classes at a college campus. Hubie Brown says "give him credit" on every replay and in every interview. I can hear him driving to the games and saying to his wife, "Give him credit, that was a great lane change." 

"Give 'em credit, that was a really good pizza." 

"Give him credit, those are nice shoes." 

"Give 'em credit, that lawn is really green." 

"Give him credit, he knows how to tie a knot." 

"Give him credit, that dog knows how to fetch." 

"Give him credit, he sticks with his catch-phrase."

This is Getting Old.

13-year-old boy "accidentally" shoots 6-year-old sister.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Gun rights activist plans armed march on Washington on July 4, 2013.

The Madness Continues

Forty-nine [documented] shooting incidents across the country last week.

I Don't Like Mondays....

Little more depressing than usual walking in to work on a drizzly Monday and seeing a young homeless nuclear family making their way from wherever they spent a dreary, wind-blown night over to the transit center. Man pushing stroller, little girl in tow, she chattering innocently, lightheartedly, while the young mother shuffles a few steps behind, looking forlorn and worn already, at 7:15AM, lugging a jumble of sleeping bags, a blanket partly dragging unnoticed along the ground. That's no life for a kid, I'm thinking, but I'm left wondering  just what can be done to help those people out, short of removing the child from the situation. And I has a sad.

 
Few songs have captured the despair of homelessness quite like this one by the Modern Lovers.

Camarillo Springs Fire

["Here come those Santa Ana winds again...."]

Some of y'all from parts elsewhere may have seen the news about this here so-called "Springs Fire." I thought it was a nice touch when one of the NBC reporters noted that we Californians "name [our] fires like those in the south and east name their  hurricanes." Yes, it's true, and this one is called the "Springs Fire." The name derives from "Camarillo Springs," which is basically the location of a golf course and a mobile home park. Both survived the blaze relatively unscathed. The RV park nearby, not so much. 

 After the fire blew through Camarillo, it headed west, fueled by those notortious Santa Ana winds, until it came up on the grounds of Channel Island State University. Two things you need to know about this place. Prior to its becoming an institution of higher learning, it was an institution of another sort, better known as Camarillo State Hospital, which has a prominent place in American pop culture history.

God Heard Your Prayers: "Psyche!"

Since yesterday was the National Day of Prayer, today must be the National Day of Disappointment.
— God (@TheTweetOfGod) May 3, 2013

Runnin' Scared

Those guys who market firearms to little kids have disappeared.

Watch a Guy Blow Smoke out His Ass

[Figuratively and literally.]

National Prayer Day

Earlier today I saw a group of people out in front of my government building with hands joined and heads bowed. Turns out it was National Prayer Day. Who knew? I guess I didn't get the memo, though it did put me in mind of this quote from the brilliant Ambrose Bierce in The Devil's Dictionary:

“PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.”

I have my fingers crossed in fervent hope that those who supplicated themselves to a fairy tale creation have all their wishes come true. Personally, I'd be satisfied if the invisible old man in the sky just stopped giving little kids cancer, or making orphans, or letting things like this happen, or this, or this or this or this or this. What gives God?

Practical Effects of the Sequester

Now that the sequester is moving into its third month, we have learned to live with some of the [wholly-anticipated] effects of the sequester:

• Meal-on-Wheels budget cut drastically, leaving housebound seniors without the comfort and companionship that comes with the delivery of one hot meal a day.  [Yawn.]
• Federal housing assistance funding cut drastically, leaving many low income renters without money to pay rent. [Shrug.]
• Head Start education funding cut drastically, leading to teacher layoffs, smaller [or more crowded] classes and a lower quality pre-K education.. [Meh.]
• Rates and Fees increased on Federal Student Loan Programs, burdening already struggling 20-somethings with even higher monthly student loan bills. [Whatever.]
• Up to 750,000 federal employees could face layoffs in the coming months, meaning many of the government services we all rely upon will suffer in the face of a dwindling workforce. [Yeah?]
• The WIC nutrition program serving some 9 million women and infant children facing a serious funding shortfall, meaning young children living on the cusp of poverty will be cut off from this vital program.. [ So? ]
• There may be some moderate flight delays at the airport as sequestration forces furloughs among the ranks of air traffic controllers. [ZOMFG!!!11!1!!111!!!!! YOUCAN'TBESERIOUSHOWWILLWEEVERSURVIVE SOMETHINGMUSTBEDONETORECTIFYTHISTRAGEDYOFEPICPROPORTIONS!!1!!!!11!!!]

The Price of FREEDUMB!!!

[Really? Really.]

Nobody ever said the Second Amendment wouldn't come with some collateral damage.

 But what can you do?

{shrugs helplessly.}

Feelin' like a Christian....

Ten Years Ago Today

This incredibly dumb thing happened....

[Idiot President Greeted by Teletubby Corps]

At the time Bush made his "Mission [Allegedly] Accomplished" speech, 141 american troops had died in Iraq.  The number would ultimately climb to 4,488 before President Obama finally managed to extricate us from the quagmire.

Clear Indicator of Dumb.

I realize that not everyone in America gets some of the deeper subtleties of our wonderfully expressive English lexicon, but when you're a member of Congress I expect more. The phrase you're looking for, Mr. Dumbass Congressman Gomer from Texas, is "by the same token," not "on the same token" (nor "at the same token" either, while we're on the subject), and once you bastardize the wording I know everything you say after that is going to be just a bunch of stupid nonsense. [Although when is comes to Gomer, pretty much everything he say's is stupid nonsense.]

We Will Never Learn.

Five-year-old shoots two-year-old sister.

Gun was gift from parents.

So it goes.